


sometimes you just need someone to hold you

by gryphonfeather



Series: the kitten animagus series [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Animagus, Animagus Harry Potter, Animal Transformation, Bisexual Harry Potter, Cats, Complete, Fluff, Gryffindor Harry Potter, Harry Potter & Tom Riddle Attend Hogwarts Together, M/M, Slytherin Tom Riddle, Soft Harry Potter, Soft Tom Riddle, and descriptions of petting cats bc sometimes I need that, inspired directly by cuddles from my rl cats, just lots of softness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:06:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24094798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gryphonfeather/pseuds/gryphonfeather
Summary: Harry Potter shifts into his animagus form - a kitten - and finds comfort and physical affection. From Tom Riddle, of all people!Very mild drama, mostly an excuse to write Tom cuddling a kitten that is also Harry.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle
Series: the kitten animagus series [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2061243
Comments: 27
Kudos: 702





	1. green eyes

Harry Potter was a fourteen-year-old wizard sitting in a group home in the second week of June, fuming at the injustice of it all. Even his Muggleborn classmates who left school to go to homes where they couldn’t practice magic because of the Trace had homes to go to. The other occupant of his small, dirty-white room was currently away at a state-sponsored music camp (that one wouldn’t stay around long, the ones with any talent were snapped up pretty quickly _except for magic talent apparently_ …) and Harry had a room to himself for the first time in years. He pulled his socked feet up onto the bed and hugged his knees. 

Thankfully, his summer plans seemed to be coming along smoothly. Harry had expected that his refusal to say a word since coming off the Hogwarts Express would have been a bigger deal, but so far his current guardians hadn’t mentioned it. Not that they had any baseline to compare him to, since he’d never met them before, but at least they weren’t punishing him. Harry’s thoughts darkened as he was drawn along into memories of past treatment from adults and… _focus. Alone in your room with chores completed. Empty your thoughts_. He breathed in, held it, then breathed out in a small gust that flipped his long black bangs away from his forehead.

He settled down, crossing his legs instead, and breathed in again. Meditation didn’t come easily to him, but it’s not like he could do anything else with his summer besides write homework essays. He breathed out.

-X-

A small kitten slept, curled up in a ball, on the corner of a park bench in the sun. It had long black fur, with white mitten-paws, and its eyes as it blinked them open were a vivid green. It uncurled slowly, then stretched its front legs forward as far as they could go, pink toes spreading, while its little mouth stretched wide in a yawn. Standing up on all fours, it then arched its back high in an upside-down U, all its fur standing on end, before sitting down and grooming the tuft of longer fur on its chest. At the sound of footsteps and voices coming closer, its ears swiveled and its head snapped up, nose twitching. Tellingly, the kitten did not run away as three elementary school-aged girls skipped up to the bench where it sat. The foremost, a Black girl with sparkly beads woven into her braided hair, held out the backs of her fingers to the kitten in a question, and when the cat sniffed them before butting its head under the hand for pets, a huge grin broke across her face. 

Her friends, one with blonde hair and a sunburned nose and the other a brown girl in a bright purple headscarf, giggled and gathered around, exclaiming over, “its little nose!” and “the toe beans, I’m in love.” They took turns petting the cat, who was clearly reveling in the attention. It tilted its head into chin skritches, demanding more; it arched its back when scratched along the length of its spine, and purred nonstop. When the girls unpacked their lunches, it was clear they had been planning to visit the cat, because three cans of tuna emerged from brown paper sacks together with apples and sandwiches. The girls laughed, and the kitten, if it was possible, perked up even more - its tail stood straight up as it walked toward its smiling benefactors. And by the time the girls left to chase each other to the swings, the cat was full, happy and ready to take another nap in the sun.

-X-

Tom Riddle was done. The Great Hall at lunch had been boisterously loud and overwhelming as everyone felt the urgent need to summarize every single thing they had done this summer for the nth time. _They had been back at Hogwarts for a week already! Surely that was enough time to talk about summer! But nooo._ The Slytherin common room couldn’t be called relaxing under any circumstances, and with the new first-years all uncertain and the second-years trying to establish that they were better and the constant whispers and alliances… Normally, Tom thrived on the gossip and connections, but he was still coming down from the culture shock between Hogwarts and his foster home. The same thing happened every year, and he was weak for not being used to it yet. Not even his fifth-year dormitory was safe, with Alphard Black alternatively mirror-calling his Beauxbatons fiancée and bragging about said Beauxbatons fiancée to anyone within earshot. 

Thus, Tom was seeking out somewhere, anywhere that was quiet. Somewhere to take his mind off of… everything, he guessed. This many people, all bustling and loud and colorful and smelly, with the pops of card games and ghosts coming through walls - when he’d been a first year, the first spell Tom had learned was an earplug spell. He had been desperate for any quiet, had spent any free time he had in the library, and eventually asked the stern librarian Ms. Pince for a way to make the noise less overwhelming. Tom hadn’t needed it yet this year, but it was getting close. 

He strode down the Transfiguration corridor, up a flight of stairs, and was about to duck behind a tapestry when he heard two things at once coming from around the corner ahead of him - jeering laughter and a pitiful meow. Now, there had been some times during the past week that Tom had regretted the Prefect badge on his robes. This was one of them. Tom was frustrated and done with his fellow humans, but he did have a soft spot for the many cats in the castle - not that he could afford one or take care of it during the summers, but he admired them for their predatory nature and unapologetically self-seeking attitude. (He’d be caught dead before saying out loud that he thought they were cute.) 

So he sighed, took out his wand, and stalked around the corner, where he took in the scene with a glance. Two boys, second- or third-years by their size, were standing up and looking with mean little grins on their faces at a small kitten suspended in the air - Tom saw a wand in one boy’s hand and bloody scratches on the other’s. The kitten itself was black with white paws, and was batting at the air around itself with ever-slowing movements. Its wide green eyes were filled with distress, its sides were heaving, and it looked like it was about to give up hope of getting down safely.

Tom could not exactly say he was in a nice mood, but this was the icing on the cake. He took two strides to bring himself within reach, plucked the cat out of the air with one hand, and disarmed its captor with the other. Both boys scrambled up against the far wall, words stumbling, trying to defend themselves, but Tom towered over them and spoke in a low voice. “Twenty points from your houses, each, for terrorizing an innocent creature. I’m going to assign you detention with Professor Snape as well. Now leave.” He punctuated his last sentence by taking one step nearer to the cowering students, and they fled as they had been told. 

He took the time to gather the small bundle of fluff closer to his chest. It was staying perfectly still, but he could hear its heart beating an incredibly quick tempo against his hand. As Tom turned and walked back towards his original destination of the hidden room behind the tapestry, he supported the kitten with one hand under its belly and the other underneath to hold its paws. He shouldered the curtain-door aside and stepped into a small gray room with a chair, table, and half-full bookshelf. Taking a second to let the cat’s paws go, he drew his wand and cast a locking spell on the tapestry (magic was still weird to him sometimes) as well as a silencing spell. Tom looked down as he was settling into the red overstuffed armchair, and met wide, jade-green eyes. He settled the cat into his lap, neither of them breaking eye contact, and wrapped his left hand around its back to steady it. That’s when the fluffy little thing deliberately closed its eyes in a slow blink before shifting to look at his chin. 

A pleased feeling erupted in Tom’s chest, and he blinked back at the cat before slowly starting to move his hand on its back up and down, petting down the long fur. The kitten pushed back into his hand a little and closed its eyes with an almost visible sigh. Tom continued the motion for a few more minutes as he calmed down, the world narrowing to the two of them in the chair. After a bit, he took two fingers and scratched lightly once down the cat’s spine from its neck to the base of its tail. The kitten opened its eyes with a small “Mrrrp?” and looked at him with a soft, slightly quizzical expression before picking up one of its front paws, licking it, and beginning to clean its face by rubbing the side of the paw over its ear and cheek. 

A small smile crossed Tom’s face as he observed the tiny creature in his lap. It felt safe with him, and he found himself incredibly charmed by the fluffy little thing. He idly scratched its back for a while, and his smile widened when he felt more than heard it start to purr. It wasn’t a constant sound at first, it kind of stop-started, but as he shifted to just pet its fur again, the sound smoothed out into a continuous vibration against his hand. 

He brought up his other hand to pet the top of its head, but when he drew close, it ducked its head away, giving him a slightly accusatory glance. The kitten was still purring, so Tom figured he hadn’t mortally offended it, but he felt bad for startling it. “Hey there,” he murmured. “I didn’t mean to scare you, I’m sorry.” He brought his right hand in front of its face without any sudden motions and held it there for the cat to sniff. After a few seconds of staring, it did, its nose twitching, and Tom slowly, deliberately, took two fingers to stroke up the middle of the cat’s forehead over and down its neck. “That’s it, everything’s going to be okay, shhhh.” He scratched at the back of its neck, then brought back his hand and reached under the kitten’s chin, and his heart nearly melted when it tilted its head, clearly enjoying the skritches and asking for more. Tom happily obliged. 

After a while, the slight, warm weight of the cat on his lap shifted and it began a kneading motion with its little white paws on his leg. He got a little worried about needle-sharp claws and snags on his pants, but the kitten kept its claws sheathed and seemed content to make biscuits as it was. Tom took his fingers and scratched the kitten’s cheek in a backwards direction, smoothing down its whiskers and making his way under its jaw, and it melted into his hand, the purring intensifying. 

An hour later, Tom sat slouched in the chair, completely relaxed, the kitten having migrated onto his stomach and fallen asleep there in the crook of his arm. Tom was blinking more slowly, losing focus on the little form curled up on top of him as he followed the cat into a lazy afternoon nap.


	2. silent paws

Harry slowly blinked awake. He noted absentmindedly that he must have fallen asleep with his glasses on, as he could still see quite clearly. He was warm and small and didn’t want to move from on top of the firm chest he could feel rising and falling with… wait.

Harry’s eyes snapped open, and he could feel his pupils contracting.

He was small, and could see, and had paws. And he had fallen asleep on someone’s chest. Supported by their arm.

His heart picked up, and he started breathing faster, but he didn’t move, frozen in place. All he had wanted to do was to get away from his boisterous dormmates and explore the castle from a new perspective! And he had been enjoying his romp around Hogwarts, minus the unexpected largeness of the stairs, until he’d been catnapped by those awful kids. A shiver rolled up his spine, his ears flattened back, and he pulled his paws closer into his body. But it seemed he had a rescuer.

Harry slowly turned his neck to peer up at the still-sleeping, lax face of Tom Riddle in a state of mild disbelief. _Tom. Freaking. Riddle!_ One of the smartest kids in their year, perpetual teacher’s pet Riddle. The most approachable Slytherin in their year Riddle. When-he-came-back-for-fourth-year-everyone-simultaneously-crushed-on-him-Riddle. 

More personally for Harry, Riddle (Tom) had been one of his few allies their first year, when Harry had been doing a poor job of fumbling around a Wizarding World that didn’t seem to have much room for him. 

Harry had been short, and skinny, and when people made fun of him he curled into himself so he took up less space. Tom had been tall and skinny and had puffed up and stood taller and spouted rules right back at them. Harry had admired him so much for that bravery. From a distance. That is, until Harry saw _Professor Dumbledore_ siding with Tom’s bullies and Tom had his head bowed like he expected that, like it had happened before, and Harry had been furious. He’d wondered all year why the Hat had put him in Gryffindor, but he remembered Professor Dumbledore’s stunned face as Harry had lashed out at him about prejudice against Slytherins and muggleborns, and hypocrisy, and how he’d thought teachers would be different in the magic world but he should have known better. Harry had barely recognized his own voice by the end of it, but he had a vivid picture in his head of him turning to walk away before the professor could say anything more and seeing Tom’s wide astonished gray eyes.

Tom had found him in the library the next day and announced they were now Transfiguration study partners because “We both have a reason now to make sure Dumbledore,”

“Professor Dumbledore!” Harry admonished in a whisper, eyes darting around.

Tom sighed. “ _Professor_ Dumbledore has nothing he can hold against us in class.” He fished into his bag and lifted the heavy Transfiguration textbook onto the table between them with a thump. Looking back at Harry, he cocked his head perceptively, with a small furrow between his eyebrows. “Will he make any trouble for you as your Head of House?”

Harry thought for a moment. “I don’t think so? I’ve never actually talked to him as a Gryffindor House thing before, so I’m not messing up anything that already existed anyways.” 

Tom’s face smoothed out a little. “Good.” 

After a productive free period of studying, Tom paused after packing his things up and getting up from the table. He… didn’t make eye contact quite, staring at the table as he said quietly, “Thank you.” Harry grinned widely at his back as he walked away.

They’d been unofficial Transfiguration study partners for the rest of term, until it had been established that the esteemed professor wasn’t going to hold a grudge against either of them, at least academically. Since then, Tom and Harry’s interactions had stayed along the lines of “friendly acquaintances.” Muggleborns should stick together and all that. Sometimes when a wizard-raised kid went off on a tirade about Those Muggles Stuck In The Dark Ages they’d make eye contact across the room and roll their eyes at the same time. When Harry’d been informed of the existence and location of the kitchens in his third year, the first thing he had done was rush to find Tom, who he knew would appreciate the knowledge just as much. 

They’d drifted apart somewhat as they both grew older and found their own separate social groups, but Harry knew the traditional Slytherin/Gryffindor rivalry didn’t apply to the pair of them like it did to the rest of the school.

(He wasn’t going to think about the fact that Tom-freaking-Riddle had been his bisexual awakening he _wasn’t, okay, now shut up brain_ )

Harry shook his head a little as he realized his kitten-self had been staring at Tom’s face as he zoned out. Thankfully, zoning back in revealed that Tom’s eyes were still closed, long charcoal lashes swept across high cheekbones. His curly brown hair wasn’t perfect and smooth on top of his head for once, but loosely fell over his forehead. Even asleep, he was effortlessly handsome.

And he’d rescued Harry from kids who were tormenting him! 

Harry sighed. Then the rest of the afternoon’s memories caught up with him. Harry had straight-up cuddled with Tom Riddle and had fallen asleep on him! He thought about blushing (thankfully this body couldn’t blush) but then he realized he wasn’t ashamed of any of it. Why should he? He was in a cat body, with cat instincts, and nothing bad had happened, Tom had just petted him. 

Harry felt his heart melt just that bit more. Tom had been so very gentle with his cat self, and he trusted him enough and had relaxed enough to fall asleep! Harry was proud of that accomplishment, actually. _All in a good day’s work_. 

He settled back down, put his head between his paws, and arranged his tail so it covered his nose, the only cold part of him. He didn’t have to go anywhere, and that had been some of the best sleep Harry had gotten in months. Surely a couple more minutes couldn’t hurt…

-X-

Tom awoke feeling warm and calm. He stayed perfectly still for a moment, eyes still closed, and then took a deep breath. Huh. Was that a small weight on his chest? Had he fallen asleep with a book again? It wouldn’t be the first time. He looked down, however, and a helpless smile crossed his face. This was possibly the cutest thing he’d ever seen, and that included the unicorn foal Hagrid had woken them up in the middle of the night to see.

The kitten on his chest was curled up into a circle, but had flipped upside down? Cat geometry was indescribable, but the front paws with their little pink toe beans were together and curled up under the cat’s chin, with the fluffy tail under its head like a pillow. Tom had to resist the immense urge to sink his fingers into the fluffy belly, and instead drew a line with his finger from the pink nose to just under one delicate ear. 

The nose twitched. A paw flexed. The kitten’s pink mouth opened wide in a yawn, revealing rows of needle-sharp teeth, then snapped shut; its head tilted forward just enough to see Tom’s face and blink at him once again. Tom thought he saw a hint of reproach in its expression - “ _Why did you wake me up??_ ” But he could be imagining that. One thing Tom could not deny was that in the oversized chair, with the late afternoon sunlight falling on them through the window, this was the most peaceful he could remember being in a long time. 

They stayed like that, nominally awake but enjoying the quiet, for a while. Tom eventually reached for his wand, cast Tempus, and sighed. “It’s time for me to get ready for dinner, kitten - I’m going to have to move,” he murmured. 

Shifting his arm, Tom weathered a complaining “Mew?” to wrap the cat’s torso in a single hand and place it on the floor. It arched its back in a shuddering stretch, and Tom matched it as he got up to stand on his tiptoes and raise his arms above his head until he felt his shoulders pop. 

They walked out the door amiably together, the cat sitting down outside to lick a single paw and groom its face. Tom bent down to boop its nose, at which indignity it scrunched up its face and glared up at Tom. “Goodbye, little pest.” He grinned, pivoted on his heel, and began his walk down to the dungeons to drop off his books before dinner in the Great Hall. He felt much more steady and prepared for what life at Hogwarts could throw at him now. 

And when his eyes drifted over to the messy black hair of Harry Potter at the Gryffindor table, as they tended to do, Tom resolved that this was the year he would do something about his crush.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back!  
> Have more softness today - this chapter was actually slightly delayed by one of my actual cats deciding to sequester my hands for a while. More than once. He still has one hand. :)  
> I have ideas for making this a series - comment if you'd like me to continue in this verse!  
> Also many thanks to Jade for the "little pest" suggestion :p


End file.
